Slow Glances and Shy Smiles
by ausllyxaustinally
Summary: Austin and Ally face the aftermath of a kiss. Auslly.OneShot.


Maybe if they didn't talk about it, the situation would go away. Maybe if they pretended that it never happened, the tension would drift. But crap, they're sitting at the piano and they just touched hands.

Slow glances and shy smiles before they look back to the piano keys, but their fingers are tripping and the measures aren't right. Ally's knees are wobbling as she stands up from the piano and collects papers instead, prefers the writing over playing.

Austin's heart is thump, thump, thumping inside his chest and he can at least manage to get the piano keys to do their job without screwing up. He thinks he's just pictured their wedding day a minute ago and his eyes are big while he tries to get his finger tips to press down on those keys.

Ally's pencil is tap, tap, tapping on the paper. Her mind is scattered with different words and thoughts, but none of them are lyrics. She thinks she just pictured yesterday again. She thinks she feels his lips rubbing against hers and the taste of syrup on his tongue, but realizes that she's only remembering.

Austin can only repeatedly play the notes for so long until his fingers ache to touch hers again, maybe trace circles along her back beneath her shirt. He clears his throat, maybe it could clear his thoughts too, but no, he's still recalling his lips moving with hers,

Her pencil manages to move along the paper that has soaked in the room's tension and she's happy that the words come out half-decent. Austin keeps gliding his fingers on the keys, because music is the only thing that fills an awkward silence. He can't talk to her, his words stutter, he can't tease her, he'll just get nervous, he can't kiss her, they're friends and he's sure he crossed some sort of line when he kissed her last night.

Ally can manage to show him her work, but she doesn't read it to him like she usually does, he needs to read it himself because good god, if she had to read it out loud she just might choke on her own spit. Her heart can throw itself rhythmically against her ribcage, she hopes her bones don't crack and her heart won't come jumping out from her chest and land into his hands. With that last thought, she realizes that it already has.

Ally's vision swims and her head spins when she thinks about last night once again and she's trying hard to give a polite smile while she's gulping the memory down her throat and trying to keep it there to forget about it.

Austin fumbles the paper in his hands, they're trembling. His eyes read over the words that are scribbled so perfectly in the lines of the loose leaf sheet and he likes the words. He sets the paper on his lap and presses high notes, low notes, until the sound comes together. He sings the words in perfect pitch and feels success take off when he gets through the words without running to a corner and curling into a ball because this awkward was so damn strong. They get through the songwriting process before Austin bolts out the door, proclaiming that he wants to practice his choreography for his next concert.

1 week later, 1 kiss that still hasn't been forgotten. Ally drops her fork, she's suddenly not feeling hungry anymore. Her best friend gives her an odd look because although Ally's favourite breakfast is waffles, she's never denied the loving taste of butter milk pancakes, today was the first time.

"Is something wrong with the pancakes?" she asks, her eye brows raising the same way Ally's blood pressure was. Her heart is rolling again because the pancakes and syrup taste like Austin's lips.

"Just not hungry," Ally manages to say without choking on the words, the same way Trish manages to swallow them, totally convinced. She runs over tonight's schedule: Groceries, Tweeter Q&A, homework, Austin's concert.

The day flies and it's Austin's concert. He avoided Ally and it was easy because she avoided him, too. He's barely managing to get through the dance because he can feel those gorgeous brown eyes burning into him as she watches from a place in the crowd. He tries to lose himself in the music, but he only loses himself in a memory. He trips, blushes, gets back up.

His two other best friends, Dez and Trish, only stare at him with confusion. Austin must be ill because he never trips! Ally's heart tripped with his dance moves. The crowd cheers him on with encouragement and Ally can only watch the way his lips verbalize lyrics. She feels his lips on hers again.

Austin finishes his song, smiles to the crowd, before his eyes land on Ally and she's putting lip gloss on her lips. He gulps.

And now it's three weeks after that kiss, Ally and Austin haven't spoken in a long time. They write their songs, but not their feelings and their friends are getting suspicious. It's Dez's birthday and why, oh, why did Dez only invite the three of them? For an odd reason, the seat next to Dez is taken and Ally's gotta slump in the seat next to Austin.

Austin is wiping the sweat from his palms onto his denim jeans and he's got to do his all not to grab her hand. He stops rubbing his jeans. Why did he want to grab her hand?

Ally is up and helping when Dez's mother needs it. Austin watches her from his seat, no he's not staring, he's observing. He's observing the way she moves her hands, the way her hair falls in her face, and the way her lips curl when she giggles. She just stole the oxygen from his lungs.

"Austin, you're looking pale," Trish comments and Austin smiles because what else can you do when you were just caught staring at the girl who should only be your songwriter and you've sworn was only your friend?

Austin stands up to use the restroom, he tucks his chair in and runs fingers through his hair. He needs to compose himself but the lights go out and Ally is carrying the cake to the table, the candles flame making Ally's eyes sparkle the brightest Austin's ever seen and he stares again. She sets it down on the table and as she lets go, the flame collides with the tip of her finger and she jumps back, cradling her hand. It's dark and flames are hot so she stumbles back into Austin. He can't decide whether he grabbed her hand because she burnt it or because he wanted to, but suddenly he's holding her hand, staring down at her finger.

"Be careful," is the first thing he's said to her since three weeks ago. He tries to examine her finger tip but Dez blows out the candles. His father turns on the lights and Ally jumps away from Austin the moment he drops her hand. Nobody has noticed, but they did. Slow glances at each other, shy smiles.

Ally takes her injured hand to the kitchen sink, runs it under cold water but only feels the tingles from where Austin's hands were. Austin watches her in the kitchen from the dining room table. He watches her flinch with the contact of water. He glances around the table, he gets up.

He meets her by the sink, "Are you alright?" because he knows her hand is most certainly not. Ally jumps, not expecting him to be there and she's jumped back into his chest where she feels his heart beating.

"Yeah," - No, she stammered that - "Y-Yeah..."

"I'm sure Dez has something here for burns," he mentions, searching through cupboards. He finds the cream that's supposed to treat burns like these and he brings it towards her. He never knew that burn cream would be the thing that lead him towards a girl who was taking a strong liking to.

Austin takes her hand and gets ready to dab the cream along the small burn that should scar soon. He takes a glance at the eyes that are watching him and at one point between the here and the now Austin's hand gently moves down gripping her wrists and he brings her to his chest and he kisses her.

Okay, so maybe kissing Ally at the Dez's birthday last week wasn't a great idea. Things are awkward and tense and much worse than before. But it's only worse because Trish and Dez got to witness it and wouldn't stop bothering them about it because that's what friends are supposed to do, right? Wrong.

Trish nudges Ally every night and makes a comment about Ally and Austin being perfect for each other and Dez punches Austin's shoulder, smirks and tells him: "Nice job!"

Austin's gripping the roots of his hair when Ally hasn't come to the Practice Room yet. She promised a song but the kiss last week probably made her want to quit the job. His stomach is twisting and his heart is jumping because she can't quit! He needs her! Perhaps more than she needs him but then she walks through the door.

He stares at her for the longest time and instead of slow glances and shy smiles, Ally stares into his eyes and smiles a big beautiful one. She makes her way to him and he scoots for her to sit next to him, so she does, but then she wraps a slender arm around his neck and pulls his lips onto hers.

Austin's eyes are big and hers are closed. This was the first time since this whole mess started that Austin hadn't instigated the kiss, he wasn't _the kisser_, he was _the kissed_. But he can't say it wasn't enjoyable because now her lips were the ones that tasted like pancakes and tongue like syrup. She smells phenomenal, too; he can't decide whether she smells like roses or violets.

Ally kissed him because she could not forget about those other two kisses so she just needed to kiss him again. Maybe this kiss would make her forget all the other ones and she was right, because it did. She forgot about every other kiss in her life, including the other two Austin had instigated because this one was greater. She didn't know whether that be because she was prepared this time or because he responded faster than she ever did.

Ally separates because she needs to breathe and Austin's eyes are staring at her. She swallows the taste of his mouth and wants to cherish it forever. And she doesn't know what comes over her when she says, "We should be together."

Austin doesn't know what comes over him when he agrees, "I know."

No more slow glances and shy smiles, they kiss again, no glances, all smiles.


End file.
